Analytical method for the assessment of unreinforced brick masonry walls subjected to eccentric compressive loads

Abstract

Slender unreinforced masonry walls are likely to fail due to mechanism formation when they are subjected to eccentric compression loads causing second order bending effects. A practical analytical formulation is herein presented to provide an accurate calculation tool for these cases. The proposed method is compared with Eurocode-6, ACI-530, Southwell Plot method (semi empiric), a Finite Element Analysis and experimental tests. The results show that the proposed method and ACI-530 are accurate at calculating the load-bearing capacity of the most slender walls and the less slender cases respectively. The Southwell Plot method achieves the best performance although its applicability is limited.